After Parkland: How a Nearby School's Students Felt Before and After the Shooting

On February 14, 2018, students at a high school in Broward County, Florida, filled out a survey for an ongoing evaluation project. Later that day, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland — a neighboring school in the same district — a shooting killed 17 people and injured 17 more. The rest of the survey was given over the following week. The accident of timing produced a rare picture of how a school shooting affects students at a school nearby, from just before to just after.

The survey

Teachers gave an anonymous, voluntary, 47-question paper survey during "personalization periods," similar to study halls. About half the periods took it as scheduled on the morning of February 14, before the shooting (575 students); the rest took it February 15–21 (502 students). The two groups were demographically similar — about half female, and mostly Hispanic (59.3% before, 57.5% after) and Black (26.9% and 25.1%). The overall response rate was 49.0%.

What changed

After adjusting for sex, age, and race and ethnicity, students surveyed after the shooting had about half the odds of feeling safe at school, twice the odds of having missed school, and seven times the odds of having missed school because they felt unsafe. Feelings of closeness and belonging did not change significantly.

Studies after the 1999 Columbine shooting, using national samples, also found more fear and absence, but smaller effects. Being closer to an event, in time and place, likely magnifies its impact — and exposure, media coverage, knowing victims and feeling similar to them are all linked to distress after traumatic events. A shooting's effects, the authors write, reach well beyond the school where it happens.

Pulling together

The rise in connectedness — 37% to 57% higher odds of feeling happy at school and of believing staff were fair and caring — fits research showing that communities often draw together after a shared trauma. After the shooting, the studied school gave students chances to talk about it with classmates and staff, opened administrators' and counselors' doors to anyone at any time, supported student clubs helping Marjory Stoneman Douglas students and staff, and explored ways to make its own campus safer. Connectedness may offer at least a short-term buffer against trauma, and it is linked to lower risk of interpersonal violence and suicide among young people.

What it suggests

Students at schools near a shooting may need trauma-informed support. Formal and informal efforts to build connectedness, alongside spontaneous support and solidarity, might help buffer the harm, and learning how to strengthen and sustain connectedness could help schools and communities respond to traumatic events.

Limits

Different students answered before and after, so individual changes could not be tracked, and students could not be randomly assigned to either group. Many students were absent on survey days (an estimated 28% and 33%), which could inflate connectedness and understate the effects on safety and attendance, and fewer than half of enrolled students responded. The study's strength is its subject: the first look at school connectedness after a shooting, among mostly Black and Hispanic students.

Sources

Based on Catherine N. Rasberry, Ganna Sheremenko, Catherine A. Lesesne, et al., "Student-Reported School Safety Perceptions, Connectedness, and Absenteeism Following a Multiple-Fatality School Shooting — Broward County, Florida, February 14–21, 2018," Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, volume 69, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a work of the United States government in the public domain.